As the first rays of the morning sun pierced through the windows of the mansion, the servants started with their usual routine of cleaning and cooking. However, a woman with long raven hair was running through the halls, panic seizing her as her heart pounded with fear for her only son. Each step echoed the drumbeat of anxiety, and the mansion seemed to tighten its grip around her.
The woman in question was Svetlana, who burst into the healer's room, her eyes frantic as they quickly found her son sitting on a stool. The sight of Favian was heart-wrenching. His face bore the unmistakable signs of a violent conflict, a swollen right eye, a battered mouth, a broken nose, and a few missing teeth. A cut on the temple added to the image and further put Svetlana's worry up in the sky.
The mother's gasp caught in her throat as she approached the bedside, hands instinctively covering her mouth in a mix of horror and sorrow. The healer worked diligently, tending to Favian's injuries, trying to ease his pain and restore some semblance of normalcy to his battered appearance. Svetlana's eyes welled up with tears as she looked at her wounded son, the mother's boy.
Overcome with concern, Svetlana rushed toward her son but was gently grasped by the shoulder by Laurence, who spoke with a firm tone, "Stay put, Svetlana. Let the healer work." Concern etched across her face, Svetlana couldn't help but inquire, "What happened? Why is Favian in such a state?"
Laurence sighed, his eyes reflecting a mix of frustration and worry, "He should be the one to answer that. He's been through something, and he needs to explain. Ain't that right, Son?"
Favian's POV:
As the healer worked on my injuries, I felt a stinging sensation on the side of my temple. He embedded a piece of cotton soaked in alcohol to disinfect the cut. I couldn't help but flinch, the sharp sting biting into my skin, but I remained still, not daring to move and interrupt his work.
I locked eyes with the healer, my gaze unwavering as I observed his every move. The healer, feeling uncomfortable under my watchful eyes, shifted nervously, perhaps sensing the intensity of my scrutiny.
"So care to explain, son?" Favian's or better yet, now my father asked as he locked gaze with me. I could see that behind his stoic demeanor, he was worried. "How the hell did you manage to obtain these wounds? The servant found you sleeping on the bed all bloodied, not to talk about the state of your room. Did you fight someone who dared to enter the mansion while hiding from our guards?"
There was no way in hell I would say the truth, as father would certainly send some soldiers to arrest him , causing all of my work to go down the drain.
"No, father, I fear I must be somnambulist. I can assure you I did not fight anybody. I just remember the screams of that servant upon waking up, which, by the way, is horrible to start the day with," I said as I winced from the wound getting bathed in alcohol. In a certain sense, I said the truth since that was everything but a fight; it was more like a one-way beating.
A pregnant silence settled in the room, and every pair of eyes, including the healer's, bore into me with a raised eyebrow, silently questioning the absurdity of my tale. Favian's father, unable to contain his frustration, brought his palm down forcefully on a nearby table. "DON'T LIE, I DEMAND THE TRUTH, YOUNG MAN."
I maintained a stoic silence, meeting Favian's father's gaze dead-on. After a moment, I spoke with an air of feigned innocence, "As I mentioned, I woke up to the screams of the servant. Beyond that, I have no idea what transpired. That's all there is to it—no more, no less."
Favian's father regarded me with a mix of disappointment and concern. After a heavy sigh, he spoke, "Keep this incident to yourself. But understand, this is the last night of leniency. Changes are imminent. Tomorrow, a new instructor will arrive, and a tutor will guide you in your studies."
"I understand, Father. I'll be more careful." I said as I stared at my parents leaving the room, letting the healer do their job. My new mother was not convinced, however, as she turned, wanting to say something, before regretting that and turning around once again following her husband.
"FATHER, PLEASE, HE IS NOT YOUR SON! I AM! HELP ME... please!" The real Favian shouted in my mind. Does he really not get it? He has no way out and no one apart from me can hear him. I felt the urge to shout at him to shut his trap; however, this was not the place for it.
Shifting my attention to the healer, I inquired about the completion of the treatment. "Are you done?" I asked, eager to put an end to this uncomfortable situation.
The healer replied, "Almost," with a steady but cautious demeanor, signaling that the physical mending was nearing completion.
The healer carefully set down his instruments, then placed his hands over me, muttering incantations under his breath. A soft, green light emanated from his hands as he focused on the healing process. After maintaining the glow for a brief moment, he finally announced, "It's over. In a few days, you should be back to normal; the body will do the rest of the job."
I nodded to him before rising from the stool and walking towards the meal hall where I was to have breakfast. The morning breakfast unfolded in an atmosphere more silent and awkward than a library during exam week.
As I sat there, I could feel the collective gaze of the servants boring into the back of my head. It was as if their eyes had turned into laser beams, that bore down on me inspecting each wound to treat it as gossip to share throughout the mansion.
On the parental front, my mother and father exchanged glances that could have rivaled a soap opera's dramatic pauses. I half-expected suspenseful music to kick in as they shot each other meaningful looks across the table.They knew that what I told was a complete bullshit, and even a bad fabricated one at that .
However father realised that it was probably something that I could not tell them , so he accepted the status quo as it was, as long as I promised that it would be the last time such thing happened.
While the awkward atmosphere of breakfast loomed around me, I was knee-deep into thinking, pondering the ways to alter my current predicament. "Call of Narlai," the novel that had become a significant part of my escapism when I was alive, was cherished by me for its unique power system, a departure from the conventions found in other literary works.
In this fantastical universe, mana replaced oxygen as the lifeblood of creatures. Instead of the simple act of breathing oxygen, living creatures of this world sustained themselves by assimilating mana from the atmosphere.
As an example in my previous life during the prehistoric era of dinosaurs, the colossal sizes of beasts were much bigger than that of my previous timeline; this was because the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere was far higher in the past. And in this world, animal stature was not dictated by the oxygen percentage but rather by the size of their mana pool from birth.
The mana pool worked similarly to the lungs of our bodies, and they also held the key to power. The larger it was, the more mana one could absorb and manipulate; conversely, a smaller pool meant limited capabilities. Mana pool had also a limit on how long they could work, and if one exhausted it, then it meant that he was without magic until he rested, allowing it to refill.
Interesting enough, since our body was one with mana, it meant that we also had the ability to change its flows around us. This, however, was an ability reserved only for the strongest, that had a mana pool big enough to achieve that , alongside the skill to maintain such power, as it was really taxing for the mind and body .
Such ability was called 'soul projection'.
Soul projection granted the ability to construct a miniature world, a domain if you want where individuals act as lords with god-like authority. In this realm, one could dictate how to shape the mana in their vicinity and how to employ it. The diversity of soul projections was vast, living up to the name as each projection was a distinct manifestation of its creator's inner world. And so it was shaped by one desire, obsessions, and even personality. Unfortunately, they could not change their rules since it was something they were born with.
Favian, in the original narrative, was humorously (and inconveniently for me) described as having a mana pool the size of a pebble. As the realization sunk in, it became apparent that I was as weak as an old man.
Luckily enough there were methods to alter the size of one's mana pool, a prospect that piqued my interest. Unfortunately, these techniques were not only easy for others to discover but also frowned upon, so frowned that one would be taken and killed for having done that. In fact, the easiest way to achieve that was to get through a contract with a devil, which is as bad as it sounds and even worse...